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MEMOIRS
OF
JAMES HARDY VAUX.
CHAPTER I.
Some Account of my Family.—My Birth and subsequent Adventures until I attained my ninth Year.
IT may be expected that, like other biographers, I should give some account of my ancestors. This I can but imperfectly do; for the volatility of my disposition, and the early age at which I left my friends, prevented me from ever making pointed inquiries on the subject. Family pride I have ever considered as the most ridiculous of all human weaknesses. However, as I am writing facts, be it known, that my progenitors, by the mother's side, were of no mean rank; my great-great-grandmother, Dorothy, the daughter of Sir Thomas Hartopp, Bart. of Ragby, or Ragley Castle, in ———shire, was united, after a long and romantic courtship, to a gentleman named Yonge, and from this
